Disney’s Hulu at Work to Let Users Interact with Advertisers
TechCrunch: Hulu is preparing to roll out new forms of advertising this year — one which will allow viewers to have more say in the ads that play, and another that lets the viewer engage with brands, either by getting information sent to their mobile phones or by...
AT&T, Comcast Studios Team on New Effort to Revive DVDs
Los Angeles Times: The market for DVD and Blu-ray discs has been on life support for years, as streaming has become the technology of choice. But studios aren’t ready to give up just yet. Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. have proposed a plan to stay in the...
ViacomCBS Shuffles Executive Team Under Ad Sales Chief
Deadline: About a month and a half after the close of the Viacom-CBS merger, the combined company has finalized the roster of advertising sales executives reporting up to Jo Ann Ross. Last October, Ross was confirmed as the head of sales for the combined...
CBS Shareholder Lawsuit to Continue on Moonves Remarks
Fox Business: A federal judge threw out most of the claims a group of shareholders brought against CBS, but declined to toss out the entire case because of comments its former longtime executive Les Moonves made that may have been misleading....
Fox’s Murdoch Earns a Shoutout from Trump at Deal Signing
Mediaite: President Donald Trump gave a number of shoutouts during his event Wednesday on the signing of the China trade deal, including none other than Rupert Murdoch. As he was shouting out people in the room, Trump remarked, “Where’s Rupert? Is Rupert not...
Nexstar’s WGN to Rival CNN, Fox News with ‘Unbiased’ News
WGN: WGN America will launch a live primetime national newscast that will be based out of WGN-TV in Chicago. The three-hour nightly newscast called "News Nation" will air from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. — and will debut this summer. "News Nation" will "emphasize breaking news...
Comcast Launches Startup Accelerator with Focus on Sports
Wall Street Journal: Comcast is funding a new startup accelerator in a bid to connect its media properties and sports league partners with emerging marketing, media and technology companies. Comcast will initially invest more than $15 million annually in the...
TikTok Attracts More Users’ Time Than Amazon Prime Video
Ad Age: TikTok saw explosive growth in the U.S. in 2019, growing 375 percent year-over-year in terms of time spent on the platform, according to App Annie’s State of Mobile report. U.S. consumers spent some 85 million hours on TikTok in 2019, up from 15 million last...
Bezos’s Washington Post Braces for Top Editor’s Retirement
Daily Beast: Is Marty Baron, the storied executive editor of the Washington Post, preparing to step down? The rumor of his impending departure, either late this year or in early 2021, has been circulating for months, prompting speculation about who might succeed...
Hearst Shifts Continue as Harper’s Bazaar Editor Steps Down
New York Times: Glenda Bailey, the editor in chief of fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar, will step down at the end of February. Her departure follows a number of other notable changes at parent Hearst, and signals an almost complete shift from the old...
Dennis Publishing to Launch The Week Junior for Kids in US
What's New in Publishing: Dennis Publishing, the company behind the weekly news magazine The Week, announced it will be launching a weekly news magazine for children — The Week Junior, following its success in the United...
McClatchy Misses Payments as Talks with Creditors Continue
Wall Street Journal: McClatchy skipped a $12 million debt-interest payment due Wednesday as it continues to negotiate with creditors to avoid a bankruptcy-court proceeding. The publisher now has 30 days to work out a...
Axel Springer’s Insider CEO Talks Ambitious Growth Targets
Poynter: Henry Blodget, co-founder and CEO of Business Insider/Insider Inc., summoned his staff last Thursday for a start-of-the-new decade meeting and laid on them three heavy growth targets for the next five years, including a million paid...
The Atlantic Unveils Fiction Section with More Short Stories
MediaPost: The Atlantic’s new fiction section will publish short stories "with far greater frequency than we’ve managed in the past decade,” executive editor Adrienne LaFrance wrote in an introduction to the section. It debuted with “Birdie,” a new short story by...
Qwoted Chief Sees No Conflicts in Owning Talking Biz News
PR Week: In response to a Yahoo Finance story scrutinizing its practices, PR platform Qwoted said it has no conflicts of interest in owning the journalism website Talking Biz News and noted that it is not misusing reporters’ data. "It’s really a PR...
ViacomCBS Eyes NBCUniversal Exec as Possible CBS Chief
Wall Street Journal: George Cheeks, a top exec at Comcast’s NBCUniversal, is headed to ViacomCBS in a senior role at CBS, where he could ultimately succeed Joe Ianniello as head of the network. Cheeks resigned from the Comcast company on...
Disney’s Streaming Service Becomes Most Downloaded App
TechCrunch: U.S. consumers have shown strong interest in Disney’s new family-friendly streaming service. Following the app’s mid-November launch, Disney+ was downloaded more than 30 million times — that’s more than double its next nearest competitor,...
Fox News Streaming Service Tinkers with Content Strategy
Bloomberg: Since its early days, Fox News’s streaming service has featured a steady diet of conservative politics. Now, more than a year after launching, company execs are trying to broaden the audience, testing additional genres — from outdoor activities to...
AT&T, Comcast News Channels Compete for Shepard Smith
Hollywood Reporter: CNN and MSNBC are shaping up to be the two likeliest landing spots for former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, who unexpectedly left the network in October and has been on the cable news sidelines ever since as he waits out a...
Fox-News Corp Climate Coverage Gets Bashed by Murdoch
Daily Beast: In a long-simmering rift between factions of the Murdoch family over climate change, Rupert’s younger son, James, and his activist wife, Kathryn, are attacking the climate denialism promoted by News Corp. and the Fox News...
iHeartMedia Radio Hit with Layoffs Across US in ‘Bloodbath’
Billboard: The world's biggest broadcast company, iHeartMedia, on Tuesday laid off dozens of employees, including veteran DJs and program directors in top U.S. cities. "It's been a bloodbath across the whole country," says one who lost a job Tuesday...
Google to Limit Cookies for Tracking Users Across Internet
NBC News: Google has announced plans to limit the ability of other companies to track people across the internet and collect information about them, a significant change that has widespread ramifications for online privacy as well as the digital...
Twitter CEO Answers Questions About Twitter from Twitter
Wired: Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey uses the power of his own website to answer frequently asked questions about one of the world's most popular social media platforms. Is the Twitter bird's name really Larry? How can you identify a Twitter...
Pinterest Surpasses Snap as Third-Largest in Social Media
Bloomberg: Pinterest shares rose as much as 13% on Tuesday after a report showed it beat out Snap’s Snapchat to become the third-biggest social media platform in the U.S. Pinterest had an estimated 82.4 million U.S. users in 2019, a 7.4% gain from the previous...
WME Adds TikTok Creators to Roster of Social Media Stars
Business Insider: Creators on TikTok are surging in the influencer space, having captured the attention of Gen Zers worldwide, and now looking to build lucrative businesses around their massive audiences. And talent agency William Morris Endeavor wants a piece of the...
Hearst Accused of Surveilling Workers During Union Fight
New York Post: The fight pitting Hearst Magazines President Troy Young against the editorial union is getting nastier, with the Writers Guild of America, East now accusing the company of illegal surveillance and pressuring employees to withdraw their union...
Conde Nast Snubs Big Stars in Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue
Showbiz411: Vanity Fair’s 2020 Oscar issue goes for something different than usual: it’s the anti-Oscar issue. Instead of nominees and big stars, they went mostly for outliers and young people. On the main cover there’s one Oscar nominee: Renee...
Meredith Unveils Rachael Ray Quarterly in Magazine Redo
MediaPost: A new premium quarterly from Rachael Ray hits newsstands this week. Rachael Ray In Season, available nationwide, reimagines Ray’s long-running publication Rachael Ray Every Day as a high-quality, collectible magazine with upgraded paper and...
Guardian Media Hires Macmillan Veteran as New Chief Exec
Press Gazette: Guardian Media Group, publisher of the Guardian and Observer newspapers, has named Annette Thomas as its new CEO. Thomas replaces David Pemsel who left last year. Thomas has spent 25 years in global publishing and data...
New York Times Trumpets Big Numbers in Digital Revenue
TheStreet: The New York Times reported that in 2019 it added more than 1 million net digital subscriptions and doubled its annual digital revenue a year ahead of schedule. The Times said that last year digital revenue exceeded $800 million. In 2015, the figure was...